


penny for your thoughts

by kitouma



Category: Kagerou Project
Genre: Bullying, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Seto-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 22:26:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5472818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitouma/pseuds/kitouma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard to change what you call someone. Seto-centric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	penny for your thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> Yay for this precious seaweed child.

_Seto Kousuke_ (瀬戸幸助)  
  _\- inland - happiness - the one who helps -_

\---

"How about Kousuke?"

"Seto Kousuke. It has a ring to it."

\---

He huddles himself against the wall with practised movements, sliding smoothly down behind the shrubbery so that his trembling form is hidden from the main courtyard. For once, he is glad for his small frame. The gloating voices approach the building and he presses himself down further, scarcely breathing. A few needles dig into his side and he prays that they will move away soon.

The feared voice comes again, calling, "Hiding again, Seto? Loser! Loser!"

It is punctuated by a chorus of laughter, dangerously close to his refuge. He compresses himself as tightly as he can in hopes that his black hair will not show over the leaves.

The leader continues to jeer, voice slowly losing volume as the group move away from the arts centre. Still, Kousuke can hear the way they spit out his surname as clearly as if they were standing right next to him.

He doesn't allow himself to relax until their voices have blended into the courtyard's chatter. Slowly, precisely, he shuffles himself over until his body is free from the shrub. Still, he can feel the imprint of needles pricking his body, leaving an uncomfortable sensation in his side.

He spends the rest of lunch break behind that bush, massaging his side and hoping that he hasn't damaged the needles.

\---

For the third time that week, he walks home wondering if he should ask to change his name. Then, he returns to an empty house and remembers that there is no one to ask.

\---

It is pathetic, he ponders as he runs a hand through Hanako's silken fur. Kousuke is a good, strong name. He remembers sitting on his mother's lap, her dexterous fingers tracing the curve of his hands as she told him how his name stood for happiness and charity. He doesn't live up to it.

Kousuke stops, his hand lingering on the dog's back. Why should he live up to it? He didn't choose it, never asked to represent joy and helping others for the sake of helping.

He shakes his head free of the thoughts, focusing instead on Hanako's unblinking eyes and the forlorn manner in which her ears drooped. Absentmindedly, he whispers, "Do you like your name, Hanako?"

He pauses then, as if expecting an answer, before resuming his patting. How very pathetic.

\---

He hadn't given it a second thought when he'd seen the boys drag Hanako into the water but now, as the cold seems to pierce him in places he hadn't known could hurt, he wonders if he's made a mistake. The river is moving much faster than he'd first thought and he realises that it has carried him far from where he had originally leapt in.

Kousuke tries to scream but it is cut short as water rushes into his mouth, down his throat and settles into the pit of his chest. He can't tell if his head is above the water or not; either way, he cannot breathe.

Panic replaces all fear for Hanako's safety as he grapples desperately for a hand, a grip, anything that will save him from the cold.

Hadn't his father taught him how to swim? If he had, Kousuke cannot remember and his arms flail uselessly in the water, reaching for something intangible. No recollection of water treading surfaces in his mind. There is only a chilling numbness in his limbs and the realisation that there is not a single name that comes to mind when he wonders if anyone will miss him.

\---

He returns to school the next week, still shivering from a cold that seems to have sunk into his very bones. The same children that had thrown Hanako into the river stare at him, seemingly fixated on his eyes, and a cacophony of voices suddenly enter his mind even though their lips are unmoving.

Freak, he hears numerous times. Weak. Idiot. Weird. _Monster._ Somewhere too, he can hear voices asking why he hadn't died that day. Even if he could speak, he would not know the answer.

Their lips move, the words become solid and his eyes burn from redness that aren't entirely due to his tears.  

\---

"Shuuya," the blonde boy says, wearing a wicked grin that doesn't quite reach the corners of his catlike eyes. "Kano Shuuya."

Kousuke has to stop himself from shaking when attention shifts to the green haired girl beside him, the final stop before his inevitable introduction.

"I'm Kido Tsubomi," she murmurs, apparently unwilling to say anymore.

Suddenly, all eyes are on him. "Se-Seto Kousuke." He screws his eyes shut, expecting some insulting comment to follow, but the boy beside him has started talking and the baton has been passed once again.

It is but one day's relief, to be in the orphanage for the weekend before Monday arrives and it will be like nothing has changed.

\---

"Shuuya-kun," he tries out, lifting his gaze up to Shuuya's to see his expression. To his relief, Shuuya is grinning.

"And I can call you Kousuke, right? You too, Tsubomi!" Shuuya laughs, his grin still crooked. Tsubomi nods silently,

Kousuke nods somewhat reluctantly. Still, it's better than Seto.

\---

Sometimes, the voices return. Regardless of their presence, his mind feels empty.

Thankfully, Shuuya talks enough for all three of them and it distracts Kousuke from the dull buzzing inside his head.

On the Saturday that Shuuya is sick in bed, he sits with Tsubomi on the back patio and makes a list of names. Dad, Mum, Hanako, Kano Shuuya, Kido Tsubomi. He almost adds in 'Kousuke', but the name 'Seto' precedes it and he cannot bring himself to acknowledge it as his own.

\---

"Stop with the 'san' already!" Tsubomi glowers, her face devoid of its usual passiveness. He shrinks back from her. "Just call me Tsubomi!"

Kousuke hesitates. His parents had always taught him to be polite when speaking. Tsubomi glares at him a moment longer before seemingly realising that he will say no more. Her eyes flash with the same red as his and just like that, she is gone.

"I'm sorry," he whispers but the words do not reach her.

\---

He has to learn three more names that autumn.

Kousuke had clung to Shuuya and Tsubomi as a tall, brunet man with glasses leant down before them and explained that they'd be going home together. He had exclaimed, "I don't want to go without them."

It had taken the glasses-wearing man a few moments to realise who he was referring to. Kousuke remembers being surprised when the man had laughed. "Of course." He'd smiled. "Now, my name is Kenjirou. You can call me Dad."

Another lady had knelt down beside Kenjirou and flashed them a smile as well. "And I'm Ayaka, but you can call me Mum."

Now, two days after that meeting, Kousuke clambers out of the car and stands awkwardly to one side as the orphanage director exchanges pleasantries with the couple. The old woman pats his, Shuuya and Tsubomi's heads before driving back to the orphanage.

"It's wonderful to have you here," Ayaka says. "Ah, and this is our daughter, Ayano. She'll be your new big sister, alright?"

For the first time, Kousuke notices a young girl, not much older than them, peeking out from behind Kenjirou's bulky, white coat. She steps forward, a sweet smile on her face.

"Ayano, this is Shuuya, Tsubomi and Kousuke," Ayaka introduces them, gesturing to each of them in turn. Kousuke looks down at his feet, standing a little bit behind the other two. The way that Ayaka had said his name still rings ins his ears: softly, and without 'Seto' tagged onto the start. It is nothing and it is everything.

Ayano knows him as Kousuke and only that. He steps forward, on the same level as the others.

\---

"Friends don't use keigo," Tsubomi explains, a hand on his arm. Friends.

"Tsubomi," he says, "is that okay?" And she smiles.

\---

The day he first calls Ayano 'Sis', he has come down with a fever. Ayaka fusses over him the whole day, having taken the day off specifically for him. It had been welcoming to avoid the children at school, who had long stopped their abuse in favour of ignoring him.

When the others come back from school, Ayano comes rushing to his bedside and asks if she can replace the cloth on his head with a fresh one. As she fumbles with the cloth, laughing at her own expense, the voices return and Kousuke braces himself for the reality he'd expected to smack him in the face.

It is only Ayano's thoughts this time. Snatches of her thinking flutter at the edge of his consciousness: _which way should I put the cloth? Is it cold enough?_ Eventually, he hears his name as well. _Poor Kousuke._

"I'm cold, Sis," he murmurs absently. The last thing he hears is his own name; whether spoken aloud or only in Sis' thoughts, he doesn't know.

\---

"You guys aren't monsters," Sis tells them again, tucking all three of them in her thin arms. Kousuke snuggles in as closely as possible, having practised similar motions at school a thousand times over.

"Really?" He whispers. The words are lost, muffled against the crook of her arm. Kousuke doesn't mind and just holds himself there a while longer.

\---

"Good morning Mum, Dad."

\---

He smooths out the crinkles in his new, white hoodie. Beside him, Tsubomi's eyes are wide as she pulls the purple hood over her head and Shuuya laughs as he dances around in his brown ensemble.

"It's like a secret organisation!" Sis exclaims, wrapping the red scarf twice around her neck and striking a pose he's seen on the covers of her comic books. "Right?"

Kousuke fingers the hem of the hoodie, smiling. There are no monsters in their secret organisation.

\---

When the news first reaches him, his mind is empty for the first time in a while. He cannot comprehend the words spilling out of the teacher's mouth.

"...landslide..."

As soon as the school bell rings, he tears down the footpath with Tsubomi and Shuuya in tow. As if taunting them, the heavens open up and rain begins to assault the tarmac with increasing force. The water strikes his body like needles and the sensation brings the river incident back to the forefront of his mind with frightening clarity. His lungs burn and beg for air that he cannot give, his breath coming in only short, brief heaves.

A flash of red crosses his vision and he reaches out. His fingers brush against something soft and before he knows it, he and Tsubomi have crashed straight into Sis' open arms. Sis pulls her umbrella up over them and clutches them as tightly as she can with one arm.

"Mum, where's Mum?" Tsubomi shrieks, clutching at Sis' scarf like the world will end if she dares let go. Kousuke just buries his face in Sis' chest. He cannot stop shivering.

\---

_"You can call me Mum."_

\---

"What is your name?" The girl asks tentatively, shrinking herself into the folds of his discarded hoodie. It matches her hair, a snowy white.

Kousuke hesitates, just for a moment, before smiling. "Seto Kousuke."

 

 


End file.
